My Easter break took me up to the northern NSW coast to a place called South West Rocks. There is a small rock island off Smokey Cape Lighthouse called Fishrock. Some of the best diving in Australia is to be had here and I would highly recommend this trip to anyone who enjoys their diving. For me this was better than the Great Barrier Reef for one particular reason -Sharks.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Underwater Navigation
Today was the first day of the underwater navigation specialty course. We started in the classroom. The Instructor was Carl, ans other participants were; Keith, Michelle, Alex and 'Pixie'.
After going through the knowledge reviews we headed to Oak Park for a double dive with lots of skill assessments.
Dive 1 saw us calculating our time and kick cycles over 30 M. Then we performed a 5 minute swim in blue water at 5 M and set a reciprocal course to the flag. We then took visual and compass references over "split rock" to see if we could relocate the site on the second dive.
Before Dive 2 we plotted a rectangle with an equilateral triangle on top "house shape" which we attempted to reconstruct using 2 separate teams in the ocean.
Our first attempt was a disaster and we actually ended up losing one of the marker flags:
Our second attempt was much better and we managed to layout the flags and navigate fairly complex patterns across the site.
We went back to the surface of "split rock" using the visual aids from the first dive. I was quite pleased to descend within 5M of the target even with a moderate surface current.
The course covers a lot of "common sense" and anyone who has been diving a while will already know a lot of the subject matter. It is really good to practice these skills in a course environment as you get a better understanding of your abilities. I was quite surprised at my lack of ability to use my compass very accurately and this course has helped me to sharpen those skills.
After going through the knowledge reviews we headed to Oak Park for a double dive with lots of skill assessments.
Dive 1 saw us calculating our time and kick cycles over 30 M. Then we performed a 5 minute swim in blue water at 5 M and set a reciprocal course to the flag. We then took visual and compass references over "split rock" to see if we could relocate the site on the second dive.
Before Dive 2 we plotted a rectangle with an equilateral triangle on top "house shape" which we attempted to reconstruct using 2 separate teams in the ocean.
Our first attempt was a disaster and we actually ended up losing one of the marker flags:
Our second attempt was much better and we managed to layout the flags and navigate fairly complex patterns across the site.
We went back to the surface of "split rock" using the visual aids from the first dive. I was quite pleased to descend within 5M of the target even with a moderate surface current.
The course covers a lot of "common sense" and anyone who has been diving a while will already know a lot of the subject matter. It is really good to practice these skills in a course environment as you get a better understanding of your abilities. I was quite surprised at my lack of ability to use my compass very accurately and this course has helped me to sharpen those skills.
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Steps double dive
I was Dive Master today and gave the dive briefing. There were quite a few new divers in the group so we decided to cancel The Leap and do a double dive at The Steps.
At the shop in the morning about 5 of the divers were really unsure about how much weight they would need and admitted to not having been for a dive in over 3 months. The tide was high and there was quite a bit of white water on the rocks. If we had a group we were familiar with then we would have done The Leap but with all the fresh faces it wasn't worth the risk.
Double Dive at the Steps without incident but I did forget my camera so no pictures or video this week
Dive 1: I took a group of 5 East through average visibility. A big friendly Blue Groper accompanied us most of the way. We saw weedy Seadragons, nice sponge gardens, a few Nudibrancs and Leatherjackets. We took our safety stop on the white rocks and had about 100M surface swim to the exit with the current.
Dive2: I took a group of 7 West as we had past high tide and the current was now heading East. We saw large schools of yellow tails, various species of LeatherJackets, Eastern Blue Gropers and Green Gropers (females). We swam back through the shallower swimthroughs and surfaced with one diver down to 50 bar. Most others still had half a tank so it pays to go off on your own sometimes.We had about a 50M surface swim with the current to the exit.
Next Week Underwater Navigation course.
At the shop in the morning about 5 of the divers were really unsure about how much weight they would need and admitted to not having been for a dive in over 3 months. The tide was high and there was quite a bit of white water on the rocks. If we had a group we were familiar with then we would have done The Leap but with all the fresh faces it wasn't worth the risk.
Double Dive at the Steps without incident but I did forget my camera so no pictures or video this week
Dive 1: I took a group of 5 East through average visibility. A big friendly Blue Groper accompanied us most of the way. We saw weedy Seadragons, nice sponge gardens, a few Nudibrancs and Leatherjackets. We took our safety stop on the white rocks and had about 100M surface swim to the exit with the current.
Dive2: I took a group of 7 West as we had past high tide and the current was now heading East. We saw large schools of yellow tails, various species of LeatherJackets, Eastern Blue Gropers and Green Gropers (females). We swam back through the shallower swimthroughs and surfaced with one diver down to 50 bar. Most others still had half a tank so it pays to go off on your own sometimes.We had about a 50M surface swim with the current to the exit.
Next Week Underwater Navigation course.
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